Water Affordability Business Case Tool

There’s a new, free, downloadable tool for utilities to evaluate how helping low-income customers afford their bills can help the utilities’ bottom line. Millions of people in the U.S. struggle to afford their water bills and face dire consequences as a result. It’s often assumed that discounts to low-income customers come at a cost to the utility. But in reality, unaffordable bills come at a cost to the utility. Ensuring bills are affordable provides financial benefits to the utility and everyone it serves.

In the summer of 2023, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) launched its new, first-of-its-kind Water Affordability Business Case Tool that allows water and wastewater utilities to quantify the “business case” for water affordability by modeling the financial impacts on the utility of offering low-income discounts.

Click the button below to download the Tool.

This link will also take you to supporting resources include a FAQ & Quick Start Guide, which explains how the Tool works, summarizes the required data inputs, and describes the types of results the Tool provides; and a full User Manual which provides detailed instructions and guidelines for using the Tool, along with a thorough explanation of its methodology and underlying premises and assumptions.